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Comment by pastureofplenty | Hacker News Reader

Yes, I have a bot that posts daily San Francisco weather records to Mastodon. It did not post as scheduled today. This is because I am looking at all the high temperatures, low temperatures, and precipitation on today's date from 1875 (about as far back as there are digitized weather records I can work with) to the present. Since there was no such date as February 29, 1875 it is throwing an error.

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I just dont get the “daily” weather records thing. Meteorologists talk about them constantly but theyre completely meaningless right? who cares what this particular day of the year highs were? its just noise! at least do it on a weekly resolution instead but even that seems so noisy itd be meaningless.

sorry, this has nothing to do with you, just a pet peeve.

People like them because they happen more often. "This is the hottest February 29th on record!" but it's not the hottest February 28th or March 1st.

Compare that to something more mathematically rigorous: "Today is warmer than 98.72% of days between February 25th and March 5th". Nobody's going to click that link.

Your words read like you're disagreeing,

but the idea seems like it's agreeing.

As weather conditions are roughly cyclical with a period of a year, this doesn't strike me as a particularly unusual thing for a weatherperson to mention in passing.

Though you're correct in that year-over-year weather changes and daily maxima lack the significance of long-term climate trends.

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